Leftover Bread Series Part I: Dedas Kharcho

Post by Anna

Just when I thought I’d eaten leftover bread every which way — croutons, bread crumbs, French onion soup, the inevitable is-this-white-mold-or-flour moment from the loaf that’s been sitting on top of the fridge for too long — I tried this.

The dish was introduced to me as Dedas Kharcho by Canadian food writer Noami Duguid, whom I interviewed at The Grain Gathering this past August, in the bucolic Skagit Valley. Naomi, known for her global cookbooks, came across the recipe from a woman in Tbilisi, Georgia, where kharcho is eaten as a soup made of lamb, tomato, and fresh coriander. Since deda refers to mother, I can only imagine that her version — eggs and bread with fresh coriander and tomato, was a breakfast-y spin on some beloved home cooking.

The conference brought together hundreds of wheat farmers, wheat breeders, bakers, food writers, and anyone else excited about plenary sessions with names like ‘Breads in Braids’ and ‘Oats Can Make You Famous.’ And I get it. It’s tough times out there for bread enthusiasts, and these folks were like a bunch of kids in a candy store — er — granary.

Spending two days watching the painstaking science and labor behind craft baking only affirmed my anxiety about wasting perfectly good food. As any bakery or restaurant (my place of work included) will tell you, pounds of artful, delicious, and relatively expensive loaves are thrown out at the end of each day, when the miche or baguette or croissant reaches its culinary half-life. I’ve been on a lifelong quest to make-do with stale bread, always gravitating towards soups that resuscitate its lifeless form with hearty beef broth and Gruyere, or Parmesan broth with white beans and kale.

It was this recipe that showed me a new take on the seemingly unending potential of eggs and bread, cheap and easy as they should be.

It takes the familiar shape of a torta, a quiche, or a frittata, though it is decidedly its own version with toasted, hardened bread cubes first fried in oil and softened by onions. It is then then soaked in a mess of more oil, egg, herbs, and whatever leftovers are around, all soaking into the bread’s unsightly crags. Ours was an excellent way to mop up a late summer’s dinner with sweet corn, tomatoes, and stewed chard, but in November, any winter accoutrements will do.

The result is a delightfully sponge-y, cheese-y square, speckled with caraway and poppy that is neither omelette nor toast, and better than the sum of its parts.

One thought on “Leftover Bread Series Part I: Dedas Kharcho”

Oh! I have called this ‘you know like French toast but with crouton-sized pieces of bread, and savory.’ Dedas kharcho will save me so many words 🙂 Yummy. Pretty pictures. Time to make bread and try not to eat it all!!